


the vigil in your name

by llien



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: DDD style questions again, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: “What’s it matter to you?” Riku snapped, always on the defensive when it came to matters of the heart.“I already told you,” Yozora said, rolling his eyes. “Now answer.”The means to an end, and the friends Sora had let go of to spare them. What had Riku justified in Sora’s name? In his own? For his pride, for his heart?“I was jealous,” Riku confessed, words small but strong. He’d long since come to terms with this particular truth. “And the world felt so small. It was easier to dream that something bigger and better waited for me out there.”“But you took Sora along.”“It would’ve been meaningless if I hadn’t.”
Relationships: Riku & Yozora (Kingdom Hearts), Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 120
Collections: Re⊕Collect: A Soriku Fic Collection





	the vigil in your name

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the Re:Collect soriku zine! I wanted to explore other consequences of Sora's disappearance, and I think with the uncertainty behind his return, Riku would have to bite the bullet and tell his family. 
> 
> The original title (the oath cracked lengthwise) for this was from this poem. 
> 
> “let it go -- the  
> smashed word broken  
> open vow or  
> the oath cracked length  
> wise -- let it go it  
> was sworn to  
> go"

The zenith of summer had just crested, and Destiny Islands was in the midst of the long and painful tread toward autumn. The sunset bled an eerie and deep red, melting into orange that blurred into the coming night, all reflected on the choppy sea common at this time of year. The tide was coming in, Riku noted, washing up higher in white froth that almost tempted him to walk into the ocean. Humidity sat damp and heavy, sand packed beneath Riku’s soles as he descended from the gummiship. 

He would have to return it to Mickey after this. That was, if he was even give half a breath to return in the first place. 

When he’d been freshly fifteen and brimming with confidence and ambition, he’d never given a single thought to consequences. It didn’t matter that all his life he’d been held responsible for the other kids just because he should’ve known better; it didn’t matter that he’d taken Sora by the hand to guide him right behind him on his heels—didn’t matter that by letting go, Riku had known better than he’d known anything else in all his life that Sora would follow him hot on his heels like the trailing dust of a shooting star.

Nothing had been so certain as Riku’s confidence that Sora would rise to the bait, and he’d been amply rewarded, and then some. He’d heard plenty of times, to his face and behind his back, that pride goeth before the fall, but rock bottom was not a swift and merciless descent but an agonizing loss of control, of scrabbling for purchase as he fell backwards and saw everything he’d striven for was just sand castles.

Sora’s plaintive words, on his knees and beseeching Riku, _I looked everywhere for you_ said so simply as the truth so often was, knocked the breath from Riku and winded him, and the metaphorical fall ended with him on his back and trying to blink dazed stars from his eyes. 

He hadn’t considered the consequences, and now he was approaching one like a guilty man going to his death, trudging through the sand with the forced self-contempt he’d long since perfected. It’d be so much easier to just climb back up the steel and foreign ramp of the gummiship, to pilot it far away from Destiny Islands and to just disappear, and no one would be none the wiser that they’d just missed the shadow of him on these islands.

But the path to dawn demanded more than just blood, and Riku sometimes wished it was as easy as drawing and quartering himself, pain gone in the blink of the eye versus the eternal torture of a guilty conscience.

He’d put it off long enough. Someone had to tell Sora’s parents their son wouldn’t be coming back this time, and no one had volunteered faster than Riku.

Riku had imagined the scenario countless times. He’d walk with a heavy, reluctant tread up the white-washed pine planks of their porch, instead of the thudding eager steps he’d used to in his youth. He’d knock politely on the screen door and wait with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, avoiding the instinct to just walk right in. The wait for their answer would be agonizing; he’d stare at their goofy welcome mat, at the rocking chairs he and Sora had played games on. He’d look over the porch railing at the picturesque view of the beach in the distance, think on how this was a sight worth thousands in other worlds, but was taken for granted here. 

The psuedo-torture fantasy always ended before his parents showed up. He had no frame of reference for their expressions. His own parents had been too distant for anything other than anger and relief, and he thought that seeing Sora’s parents disappointed in him would be the final knell in Riku’s sentence.

He’d parked the ship on the far side of the play island and rote memorization made quick work of Riku’s trip to the shore where a few boats where always docked, swelling high on the waves that felt adventurous. Riku had never thought much of the universal personification they gave the ocean; when you lived by the sea, it was as common as everything else, with the sand and fronds of palm trees drifting on the breeze. Their ocean waters were always warm, even in the deep night, and the only exception was the laughable excuse for winter months. 

He stepped into a white row boat and grabbed the oars to paddle himself back to the main island, watching the bent paopu tree they’d made a base of. If he squinted, lashes feathered to obscure his view, he could just imagine Sora on the hump of the crooked tree, bare-legged and loose-limbed, waving a single, lazy tan arm while he grinned. It wasn’t the Sora who had disappeared, or the Sora after their adventures — it was the Sora of his dreams, where he’d never left the islands and had made peace with his own traitorous heart much sooner, where Sora still napped lazily in the shade of trees beside a pond, feet dipped into the pool as the waterfall churned a fine cooling mist over his features. 

His dreams felt insidious, to him. Rowing was so effortless that his mind slipped away, locks of his hair drifting into sight as the wind blew into his back. In his dreams, real memories merged with fantasy and secret, tightly-kept desires. In his dreams he kneeled beside Sora’s prone form and could bend down to press a kiss to his brow, or flick his nose and wake him up.

In them, Sora was as warm to the touch as the sand he could dig his fingers into, hot heat in his palm that felt too _real_ to just be dreams. Sora was blue eyes and tan skin and sun-bleached hair and _freckles_ that Riku could idly count for as long as he wanted because he never had enough self-control to steer his lucid dreams away.

Even though he woke up lonely and heart clenched tight in his chest with grief, those dreams were still far better than the ones where Sora was cold and still and encased in crystal. He could never escape those until he woke up with a gasp and stuttering heartbeat, frantic to save him but powerless.

He docked and tied the boat with familiar movements, knotting the rope securely and stretching his back out as he watched the surf roll in beneath the pier. The play island blocked the swell of the setting sun, and Riku stood tracing the line on the horizon. Nothing ever changed here, no matter how many years had passed, except them. The ropes were still thick and strong, the boats’ with peeling paint but sturdy planks, the oars etched with names and dates and hearts by childish hands. Riku hadn’t picked a pair holding his or Sora’s name, but he knew one of them had it. The wind proudly pushed into Riku, as if to demand why his foreign presence had returned to the home he’d forsaken. With the encroaching evening came the fierce wind and unforgiving tides. Despite the relative freedom on the play island, all the children knew they had to be back before sundown, when the ocean grew deceptive and cruel. 

Sighing, Riku turned his back on all the old memories and started down the boardwalk, picking his way towards the main road. Destiny Islands was modest, and hardly any businesses crowded the seafront, preferring instead to maintain the beauty. Farther in, something approaching modernity claimed the streets, but neither of their homes were in that direction. Instead, he continued along the beach as fronds began to crowd closer and the sidewalk broke into mere suggestion of stones. The forest began to press in, erupting mere feet from the sand with tall trees and thick brush, but the winding path through it was still clear. Palm fronds caressed the top of Riku’s hair as if welcoming him, bushes scraped his calves and forearms, warm as his skin with the lingering heat of day, and even the insect song sounded sweet.

His eyes burned. How easy it had been for him to throw all this way. How quick he’d asked Sora to do the same. 

The break in the tunneled foliage turned the world from hues of green to orange and somber twilight, and up ahead was the crooked line of all their homes, atop awkward stilts and tall porches, toys and blankets in their shade where they were carelessly stored from day to day. Riku climbed the bank of the hill that swept up into Sora’s neighborhood and slowed as he approached.

Nothing had changed. 

The steps up onto the porch proper, the rocking chairs still swaying and creaking with the wind, the ridiculous welcome mat. With his heart in his throat, Riku knocked three times on the fading paint of the screen door, holding his breath. Maybe no one would be home, maybe he’d be spared, maybe another day he could come back, when it wouldn’t feel as terrible. 

He heard the footsteps and closed his eyes. With a sharp exhale, Riku focused and composed himself. This wasn’t about him. It didn’t help the way his heart seized with fear.

Disappointed his own parents had been inevitable. Disappointing Sora’s mom, though? It made him feel small and worthless.

The door wrenched open faster than he could prepare himself, and he locked eyes with her.

She seemed so much older.

She’d always been _old_ to him, in the sense that she was a mom and therefore an entirely different type of human, but now that the gap between had closed just a little bit, if not physically then at least emotionally, he could see where stress had aged her. Before she could’ve been mistaken as Sora’s sister, with that inner child at heart always peeking through, but now there was no denying who she was. 

She seemed stunned, rooted in place and staring at him like he was a stranger from years ago and not the boy who wouldn’t eat sandwiches if the crusts weren’t cut off. She’d always indulged him then. He wondered if she remembered that about him.

“Hi,” Riku said, throaty and rough. You could _hear_ the rock lodged in his throat. He cleared it and stuffed his hands in his pockets, scuffing the toe of one shoe behind him. “I’m back.”

Then, before he could even try and read whatever expression she could be wearing, he was pulled into her arms in a hug so tight he couldn’t breathe, and her tears were warm on his shoulder, and, well.

Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

* * *

She didn’t blame him.

“Sora made his choice,” she said simply as she washed the dishes from their meal, and with a funny smile. “Besides, he would’ve followed you anywhere. Seeing who you grew up to be, it could’ve have been all that bad.”

Riku had outgrown her by several inches, something he’d noticed after she’d stopped tip-toeing to hug him, and as he stood beside her to dry the dishes she handed him. She’d given him her portion of dinner, tacking on, “It’d been hard at first, remembering how to cook for one. For a long time, I didn’t try… it felt too much like giving up.”

Little comments like that peppered throughout their conversation that, though unintentional, made Riku drown in guilt.

Sora was like a ghost in her home. More framed photos of him than Riku had remembered decorated the walls and shelves—with Riku in more than half of them. The only other glaring difference was the missing miscellanea of objects that Sora had always left around. Toed-off shoes, jackets and socks and games and trinkets, pretty shells and the carving projects he’d abandon halfway through. The wind chimes he’d made still hung over the porch, interspersed with seashells of her favorite color.

“I know your family must miss you,” she’d told him at the foot of the stairs, wringing her hands in her apron, “but you can stay, if you want.”

In between her words was the unspoken acknowledgement she’d always given him growing up, about how different his and Sora’s upbringing was. More pictures of him existed here than at his actual home.

“It’s fine,” Riku had told her, voice gruff. “I’ll just… take a look.”

In his room, Riku stood in the middle, slowly turning in place to absorb it all. The huge bay windows perpetually left open were shut, the curtains tucked into hooks on either side. No toys were out, or clothes. Riku could actually walk across his floor without tripping, and the normally crooked and half-folded rug was properly centered and laid flat. 

How many nights had Riku spent in this room, staring at the fake glowing stars stuck to the ceiling between the oscillating blades of the fan? A rhythmic _whump, whump, whump_ that had lulled Riku to sleep along with the distant waves of the ocean, ever present and almost stagnant in its familiarity. 

His room smelled faintly of wood and cleaner, and when Riku trailed his hands along the furniture he found no dust. Even the rungs on the straight back chair of Sora’s desk were clean. Riku would likely never know what it was like to grieve a child, but he guessed this was as bad as it got. A pristine room, waiting as if one day Sora would trip over its threshold and skewer the rug in place, throw his clothes along the back of the chair and flop faceforward into bed. 

Riku was responsible for this, no matter what his mother thought. 

Gingerly, he approached Sora’s bed and perched on the end of it. Fisting his hand in the duvet, he lowered himself until he laid stretched on his side, uncomfortable but he wasn’t trying to linger. Closing his eyes, Riku let himself dwell in the memories of the past.

Night time had descended fully, and Riku had already told Sora’s mother he wasn’t staying the night, here or anywhere else on the islands. He’d already wasted too much time here reminiscing when he could be looking for Sora anywhere else. 

For a while, he drifted on daydreams of whatever memories remained, as if they stained his very room with their presence. The absurdity of realizing none of Sora’s socks matched, how they never bought two copies of the same game because if one had it then it was as if they both did. 

Tipping backwards, Riku fell further down the rabbit hole. 

He remembered the first time they’d been allowed to venture out, left to their own devices. The silly nonsense games they’d played to compete. Sora, a few paces away, pouting and nursing a sore pride over losing to Riku again, and Riku couldn’t have preened better than all the birds on their island. But despite losing, Sora was still all smiles as Riku wrapped his hands around Sora’s and hauled him to his feet, guiding him to a pathway he’d discovered earlier.

They’d stumbled through underbrush, Riku thumbing away beads of blood from a stick scraping Sora’s knee, both of them heedless of dirt infecting a wound. Clammy and sweaty from spending hours under the sun, neither of them cared about the bugs or dirt as they found a tiny meadow to collapse in, laughing at something Riku couldn’t remember now, but the feeling remained.

Maybe that was when Riku had really realized what _adventure_ could be, the thrill of discovery, the wonder of new sights and the way a heart could feel so full. 

It was as the dam had burst on every memory Riku had collected of Sora. One after the other they paraded in front of him. His first day of school, and Sora’s the next year. Their favorite movies and favorite hiding spots. The perch on the highest spot on the island, where if you sat very still birds would come flying back. How far the horizon stretched, and the endless worlds they created between them—pirates and captains and mermaids and fairies, of purple skies and blue trees, of no bed time and a buffet of sweets. Of fighting and swords and being an indomitable duo. 

Newer memories sometimes rose out of order. The pang of hurt when he’d boarded the gummiship for the first time and learned Sora had named it _Highwind._ The long list of worlds Sora had explored and all the friends there, and how each one knew exactly who Riku was. How they all parroted the same thing everyone had told Riku here on the islands—‘you’re all he ever talks about.’

But like the others, it slipped away behind another, and another. A kaleidoscope of stained glass memories surrounded him as he fell further, not a rocketing plummet but with the wavering awareness of surf rolling over him as he lay supine on the cusp of it. 

Eventually, he opened his eyes and found himself in that silver, gilded gazebo in the center of a field of blue poppies. He’d only seen it once before, but he would never forget the way thousands of flowers had bloomed in a wave, releasing pollen like light to dance in the night sky. The shifting blue and purple of a sky made of cosmos and stars hung pristine above the flowers, and in the far distance mountains filled the horizon, a far cry from an endless sea.

He was dreaming. It was obvious now. He must’ve fallen asleep thinking about Sora, like daydreams blurring the line between reality and sleep, until he’d slipped through the veil without noticing.

The gazebo was just for show. The high-domed ceiling was just thin lines of silver tangling together in an intricate design. If it rained, the entire gazebo would be drenched, but like before it was night time. No moon hung in the sky to judge him for his dreams, only the stars as his companions.

“I could stay here,” Riku thought. Traitorously, his heart wondered if maybe he’d slipped into Sora’s dreams again. 

“And give up so soon?”

Fear drained the warmth curling up in Riku’s heart. Whirling around, he was halfway to summoning his keyblade when he locked eyes with the stranger bathed in starlight.

Blue and red met his fearlessly, and the dichotomy was so strange that Riku was struck mute.

“What?” the stranger asked, titling his head with a curling smirk, hair falling to the side. His gaze was violating, piercing. Familiar, in the throes of a dream. “Is that it?”

“Who are you?” Riku demanded, swallowing hard and forcing his voice to be strong. It came easy to him, after a year of playing the same to everyone else. “How did you get here?”

“Same way you did,” he said, shrugging and looking around. The moonlight was deceiving, but Riku carefully looked him over. They were… too similar. As if noticing, he looked back and met Riku’s gaze unerringly. “The name’s Yozora.”

Yozora… why was that familiar?

Riku frowned, backing away until the guardrail of the gazebo embraced him, comforting when faced with uncertainty. “Sora’s mentioned you before.”

At that, Yozora’s expression finally changed, minute and subtle, but it was there. He furrowed his brow. “Again with that.”

This time, Riku noticed the diversion for what it was. Scowling, he demanded, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

Yozora walked in further. The table for one glinted with the silver of moonlight, highlighting his skin until he looked unreal, ethereal. Paired with his eyes, if it wasn’t because of Riku’s unique nature he might’ve been fooled into believing he was just a figment of a lonely imagination.

“The means to an end,” Yozora said cryptically. “The power he forsake to save you all.”

_My friends are my power!_

Parting his lips, Riku’s mind raced as the implications tripped over themselves with nervous anticipation. Yozora seemed content to let him work through it, using the seat of the chair to sit on the table, one foot dangling and the other resting. 

“Us?” Riku finally managed. The breeze blew violently, strange and unusual, and the glowing lights the flowers bloomed with went along. 

“You,” Yozora corrected.

“Me?” Riku breathed, small and half-afraid.

Half hoping.

“I’ve answered your questions,” Yozora said suddenly, “now it’s your turn to answer mine. Why did you leave the islands?”

Turnabout was fair play, but Riku hadn’t been expecting to be interrogated, let alone of this nature. He’d always alluded to his shame before, in half truths and metaphors, a step away from being so honest he bled. That was easier than Sora’s brutal, forthright nature.

“What’s it matter to you?” Riku snapped, always on the defensive when it came to matters of the heart.

“I already told you,” Yozora said, rolling his eyes. “Now answer.”

The means to an end, and the friends Sora had let go of to spare them. 

What had Riku justified in Sora’s name? In his own? For his pride, for his heart?

“I was jealous,” Riku confessed, words small but strong. He’d long since come to terms with this particular truth. “And the world felt so small. It was easier to dream that something bigger and better waited for me out there.”

“But you took Sora along.”

“It would’ve been meaningless if I hadn’t.”

For a moment, Riku was overcome by the strength of his feelings then. They had faded with time, turned frail and yellowed at the ages with the tint of forgiveness. Now, they scalded him with their intensity. How he could be so jealous, how he hated Sora, everyone, himself. How miserable he was, unloved and unwanted and unneeded and meaningless, inconsequential, an existence uncherished. Wasn’t Destiny Islands the very proof that even if he stepped across its threshold, there were no freshly washed sheets waiting for him, no pristine room begging to be lived in?

His throat grew tight. At the same time, he thought:

_Thank God._

It still hurt, but not as much as it had then. He’d been so alone, even when Sora was right beside him. The climb back up after the fall had been brutal, but at the top all he could feel was the overwhelming relief that he’d made it. That he’d tasted happiness, for once. That beyond Sora was a list of people he could name who would miss him.

“Do you regret it?” Yozora asked.

Fresh on that revelation, Riku’s voice wasn’t strong anymore. It was wet, weak, but conviction lined and rounded out its notes, so it wasn’t as hollow as what he had practiced in the mirror before. “No.”

If he had the chance to do it all over again, he would. For all the hurt and tears and loneliness and pain, he’d do it again for where he was now. 

“Do you still envy him?”

He didn’t have to name Sora. It was obvious. Riku gave a self-deprecating kind of laugh, smiling at Yozora. 

“I think I always will, but now it doesn’t hurt when I do.” Riku had found the path he could follow, and beside him would be Sora. There would always be difficulties, but Sora had taught him the strength of hope, and it was a lesson he wouldn’t forget. “No matter how many times I stumble, I know I can get up again.”

“Then close your eyes.”

The moment he did, Riku felt the sensation of _dropping,_ like the plunge into warm ocean water as bubbles thundered furiously past him. Layers of dreams rose up around him, passed him to the surface as Riku sank deeper. The descent was a breath long, and when Riku opened his eyes he was somewhere else.

The wind buffeted his body as he stood atop a skyscraper, the veil of stars from the field of flowers gone and obscured by city light, but the cityscape around him paled in comparison to the brilliant light in front of him.

There, encased in shining fractals of crystal, was Sora.

His name was ripped from Riku’s throat and gone from sound as his heartbeat kicked into overdrive, and he was tripping and running to him, stopping just short of colliding with him while he hungrily looked him over.

He was asleep, like always, and Riku started to laugh. His hand shook as he cupped Sora’s face, and he shook his head in disbelief.

“Is it true?” Riku breathed. “Is it really you?”

Sora didn’t answer him, but Riku could’ve sworn he grew warm.

“Of course it is. You’re asleep.” His laughter rounded out, grew stronger and less shaky, and he hunched over Sora’s prone form as they petered out. “I’ve nearly lost my mind looking for you, and you’re just… asleep.”

He wasn’t angry, just fond. 

_Do you love him?_

“I don’t know what to name it,” Riku admitted, thumbing Sora’s cold cheek, “if it isn’t love. I made a promise, the strength to protect who matters most.”

It was as simple as leaning down to brush his lips against Sora’s—

And Sora woke up.


End file.
